No piece in the classical canon creates a sense of occasion like Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, of which the Boston Symphony Orchestra gave the first of three performances on Friday. The frequency with which words like “epic” and “grandiose” attach themselves to this work is no accident. Completed in 1907, the Eighth requires huge forces: not only an expanded orchestra but two adult choruses, a children’s chorus, and eight vocal soloists. Mahler sets two texts — a medieval hymn and the final scene of Goethe’s “Faust” — that exalt in universal ideas: the creative spirit, love, and, above all, redemption.
All those ingredients combine to form a piece that stands alone in Mahler’s oeuvre. There is an almost relentless opulence to the sound, and the anguish and despair that color the composer’s other symphonies is absent from the Eighth: It exudes affirmation practically from the opening chord to its ecstatic conclusion.
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It is also the rarest Mahler symphony to encounter in live performance. For evidence, consider that the BSO, now in its 144th season, didn’t even perform the Eighth until 1972, and had played it just 13 times prior to Friday. So this weekend’s concerts offered a welcome opportunity to bask in the presence of a unique work that demands to be heard live.
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As for Friday’s performance, under the baton of music director Andris Nelsons, it was bold and extroverted, if also somewhat rough around the edges. It got off to a strong start in the 25-minute first part, which sets the hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus” in a blazing fastball of musical counterpoint with few points of respite. Nelsons mostly did well in keeping everyone — around 300 musicians, according to the BSO press office — together, though there were moments when the ensemble cohesion slipped considerably. The orchestra roared and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus was consistently impressive in music of treacherous difficulty.
Conductors sometimes take an intermission between the two movements, which tends to let the accumulated heat of the first part dissipate. Nelsons, though, took only a brief pause so that all on stage could catch their breath. Then he began the hushed, solemn march that opens Part II and introduces us to Goethe’s dramatic setting: a mountain gorge from which Faust’s soul, and Mahler’s music, will inexorably ascend.
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Part II unfolds like an oratorio, in a series of arias, choruses, and interludes in which Mahler deploys his forces with painterly tact. Here Nelsons was at his best, shaping this motley collection of musical numbers into an unbroken arc with a sure grasp of its internal ebb and flow. I did wish that he had maintained better balances between orchestra and soloists, some of whom had trouble making themselves heard. That also goes for the boys of the St. Paul’s Choir School.
Among the singers, the standouts were soprano Christine Goerke — for the rich colors of her voice and keen awareness of Goethe’s text — and bass Ryan Speedo Green, whose singing had depths of resonance and dignity. Soprano Ying Fang, singing from the second balcony, brought delicacy and grace to the character of Mater Gloriosa. Soprano Latonia Moore, mezzos Mihoko Fujimura and Gerhild Romberger, tenor Andreas Schager, and baritone Michael Nagy completed the strong cast.
The Eighth Symphony ends with a chorus that begins in a whisper and ends in a wave of sound unlike any other music of this era, as Faust’s soul rises to heaven. Under some conductors this music can seem merely loud; Nelsons, slowing the tempo yet never losing momentum, and cueing brass players high up in Symphony Hall, made it the fulfillment of everything that came before. Goerke had a beatific smile on her face. The final chord unleashed a lengthy ovation.
It is easy to be cynical about, even mistrustful of, the Eighth’s overflowing positivity. Mahler’s other symphonies speak more clearly to the complexity of our individual lives. Yet to be in a hall amid that concluding blaze of sound will, I think, cause a lot of that resistance to melt away. Especially in a world rent by division, 90 or so minutes of untrammeled affirmation may be just what we need.
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BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
At: Symphony Hall, Friday (repeats Saturday and Sunday)
David Weininger can be reached at globeclassicalnotes@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @davidgweininger.
